


For the Record

by canox



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Office, Co-workers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Face-Sitting, Glam Rock, Magazine AU, Mildly Dubious Consent, One Night Stands, Or not, Smut, Traditional Media, anyway rey is obsessed with ben's thighs, but in a positive way, classic rock song as sexual how-to, dream jobs, kiiiind of a bon appetit test kitchen AU, lite, magazines ilu but you're so poorly run, notes in the first chapter, rey shakes ben all night long, tagging just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:48:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canox/pseuds/canox
Summary: Rey is a sharp-eyed editor at a top magazine. After a frustrating day at work, she has a one-night stand with a musician, never thinking he might be someone she knows.But she’s about to discover that, between sleeping with a stranger and missing what's happening at work, maybe she's not as sharp-eyed as she thought.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 44
Kudos: 111





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> cw: very mild dubcon in this chapter; see the end of the chapter for notes!
> 
> One day, not long ago, I learned that Gene Simmons used to be an assistant at _Vogue_. Soon after, I read [this amazing profile](https://www.vulture.com/article/sohla-el-waylly-profile.html) of Sohla El-Waylly.
> 
> Then I mashed all my new knowledge together into this Reylo AU! Wheeeeeeeee!
> 
> (Except nobody is as bad as Gene, who seems kind of gross IRL, and there is nothing explicit about Sohla.)

Ben was looking at her again. He was _always_ looking at her.

Rey spun around to show him the back of her desk chair while she finished talking to Poe. So it wasn’t a work call. Her friend was in town on business for one night only, and he wanted to go to a concert together instead of having dinner. 

It would have taken five minutes out of her work day to arrange to meet outside the hall—if Poe hadn’t wanted to tell her all about his latest meeting with the client who insisted there was nothing wrong with naming their new software project Spunk, “because ‘moxie’ was already taken.”

So she’d spent 20 minutes doubled over and wheezing instead of working on her feature about men who went shopping with each other, challenging traditional notions of masculinity. Big deal. She didn’t need Ben to supervise. If he looked on the server instead of at her face—which he could; as the assistant to Richard Snoke, editor-in-chief of _Rogue_ magazine, Ben had god-tier access to all their files—he’d see that she’d already edited two other stories that morning.

Maybe he didn’t mean to stare. The _Rogue_ offices were a warren, carved out of an old candy factory that was rumored to be haunted, all exposed brick walls and squeaky floorboards and drafty windows broken up by plastic privacy screens. Not exactly the glamorous setting most people envisioned for the country’s leading men’s glossy. 

It was just a quirk of the layout that when she sat at her desk, Ben’s was the only other face she could see. Only natural that when she looked up, she’d catch his eye; an instinct left over from when humans had to spend their days spotting leopards in trees and other threats.

There was no proof Ben had said anything to their boss when she’d hauled in a sun lamp and spent 20 minutes in front of it every morning with her eyes closed, picturing Tahiti. He hadn’t ratted them out when Rey and her friends on the edit team had spent half an hour admiring the dildo set Rose, the sex and relationships editor, had been sent to review, or when they’d snagged a bottle of wine from the table of free stuff and opened it right after lunch. They weren’t slacking off; their work was getting done. They just weren’t working the _entire_ day.

But Ben always seemed to be giving her a look. He was always writing in a little notebook that was probably full of tattletale entries like _11:26 a.m. Has not typed a single word in 30 minutes, only stared out the window_ and _1:42 p.m. Feet propped on desk, tossing M &Ms into mouth. Total lack of professionalism_ and _10:31 a.m. Left for PR lunch_ followed by _3:35 p.m. Returned. Giggling indicates tipsiness_.

And his boss certainly didn’t like her—or any of the other editors, for that matter.

Criticism she could handle. She’d worked for old-school editors whose idea of glowing praise was to let her run a story at all. She’d overhauled pieces so many times that she’d turned a story about a dog into one about a cat, no problem. 

What galled her was the way Snoke always found fault with her stories, but couldn’t suggest anything that would improve them. Nearly a year into the job as the magazine’s features editor, she’d resolved to try to keep doing her thing in spite of what he said. It was discouraging, though, to be met with nothing more than _meh_. Every month, every issue, it felt like there was less and less of a point in even trying.

“Don’t be late. I’m not standing through the opener by myself,” Poe was admonishing her.

“I’m never late,” Rey said. “I’m hanging up so you can’t argue. Bye!”

She turned back to her computer. Now that she was going to do some actual work, Ben’s head had disappeared.

That was because he was coming through the doorway into the editorial area on his long legs, printout in hand, wincing as he ducked under masonry built for 19th-century child laborers. She tabbed to her Word doc as he came to loom over her.

“Yes?” Rey asked, in a tone that suggested he was interrupting some critical comma placement. 

“Snoke’s feedback.” He dropped the story on her desk—the breezy 10-page package she’d put together on the best vacations to take as a couple. It was fun, it was well researched, it should have been exactly right for _Rogue_. There was only one comment: _I don’t understand. Could you have the writer take another stab at this?_

It was worse than being told he hated it. Rey huffed out a sigh to keep her head from exploding.

“Did he say anything else?” she demanded.

“No.” Ben turned to go.

“I can’t have the writer redo it without more direction,” she protested.

“Send him an email.” He took a step away.

They both knew Snoke never responded to emails. Ben printed them all and left them in a leather tray on Snoke’s desk, where they sat until Ben recycled the whole stack at the end of the week and replaced it with fresh printouts on Monday morning. 

Snoke told them he couldn’t make calls on his smartphone, let alone read messages on it, but somehow he’d managed to use it to phone one of the sales coordinators at the hospital and berate her for leaving the office to deliver her baby. And he updated his Instagram, @rich$noke, every day, scattering likes on posts from people at his own level and condescendingly nice comments on posts from unfortunates who weren’t lucky enough to be in charge of their own magazine.

“Can you schedule a meeting?”

“Send a request through the calendar. He’s away the rest of the week, though,” Ben said, unhelpfully.

“What is the point of him if he’s never here,” Rey muttered, half to herself. The editor-in-chief was meant to be leading the team, not taking six-day-long weekends. Every story had to be approved by him, and they’d fall behind schedule if he wasn’t there to do it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

Ben took a step back to her and rocked on his toes. “You should have the writer interview someone from that eco-resort in Costa Rica where Snoke went a few months ago. He’d like that. And it’s a good story.”

She _should_? Did he think he could do her job better than she could? If she counted the college newspaper, she had nearly 10 years’ experience as an editor, and Ben had been Snoke’s assistant for seven months. Even if he didn’t think that, the least he could do was take her side against his boss, not agree this was feedback worth considering.

“Okay. Thanks,” she said dismissively, and turned back to her screen.

Ben hesitated for a second, then returned to his desk. She could tell he was looking at her again when he sat down, but she kept typing and didn’t look back. Let him make a positive note for once. _9:53 a.m. Typed for five minutes straight while sending assignment emails to writers_.

*

Rey poked her head around Rose’s screen. “Lunchtime?” she asked hopefully.

“Two minutes. Need to send this email,” Rose said, tapping away with a scowl. “Snoke hates the package of personal essays about people’s love for their trans partners’ bodies.”

“That story made me cry.”

“It’s good, right? What does he expect me to change? These couples exist and they’re loving life.”

“He hates the vacation package, too.” Rey rolled her neck, stiff from spending the past hour hunched over the printout, trying to figure out how to make it seem like it had been rewritten without actually making the writer do the work over again for free. “Where’s Finn? He didn’t answer my Slack.”

“He went upstairs to help with a video. One of the assistants came down and said they needed him.”

“So now he’s working through lunch on a video? Is that part of his job now?” That wasn’t like Finn. He usually didn’t take anybody’s bullshit, which made him a great entertainment editor. Whenever he got ridiculous PR emails, he simply ignored their requests not to call their famous clients by their first names or embarrass them with a mention of the horrible-but-cult film that launched their career, and ran the stories he wanted to.

“It’s the third time this month.” Rose stood up and stretched. “Is it warm enough to eat outside?”

*

“I hate IPAs, so I got us both lagers,” Poe said, sloshing beer onto her hand. “As a reward for showing up on time.”

“You’re only in town for one night,” Rey said, tapping her cup to his. “Like I would miss a single minute with you. That, and work was garbage today. I just—I really hate working for my editor. I feel like he’s sucking up all my creative energy and I’m just this dry husk.” She hadn’t realized it was true until she said it. That the non-comment on her feature was the last straw between _This job isn’t ideal, but it’s okay_ and _This job makes me feel terrible_.

“Don’t worry. We are going to _cut loose_ ,” Poe said. “We’re going to elbow our way to the front and dance our asses off. Come on.” He shimmied between groups, flashing his grin whenever he got a dirty look, until they were close enough for Rey to set her beer on the stage.

“What are we cutting loose _to_?”

“It’s very—it’s something else. You’ll see,” he said cryptically, and then the lights dimmed and the opening act strode out. They’d barely finished their set when the group of girls behind Rey pressed closer, squeezing her into Poe’s back and deafening her with their screams.

“What are they saying?” she yelled in Poe’s ear. He’d shown tickets for both of them at the door, so she hadn’t even looked at the headliner before getting her hand stamped and walking in.

“For the band!” he shouted, not understanding. Who else would they be screaming for? She could have pulled her phone out and googled, but what was more uncool than looking up which band you were seeing while standing in the front row? She was already going to have to face the stage to hide the fact that she didn’t know any of the songs.

Not that she would have looked away, she realized when the lights came up. The band was mesmerizing. The musicians had painted their faces in primary shades, down to their eyelids and lips, and spiked their hair, more glam-rock-robots than humans. They stomped across the stage in knee-high platform boots and stretched their leather pants to the limit, kicking and squatting.

It didn’t matter that she didn’t know any of the words. Poe was screaming along loud enough for both of them in a high-pitched yowl that matched the lead singer’s falsetto. Everyone in the band was grinning, clearly happy to be there doing their thing. They weren’t embarrassed to be dressed up and dancing around. They just went for it.

Rey forgot to be self-conscious and cut loose. She could feel her eyeliner running by the time the music slowed and the lead singer dashed offstage for water. 

“We need help from one of you,” the bassist said, over vamping from the drummer, “with our last song.”

Her heart sank. Their last song? She could have danced for another hour. 

“I read about this!” Poe shrieked. “I’m going up!” He jumped up and down while waving both hands, showering her with the last of his beer, impossible to ignore. When the bassist pointed to him, he screeched and swung himself onto the stage, leaving Rey to dance by herself.

The “help” turned out to be making Poe disappear in a song about...magic tricks? Rey couldn’t tell what they were saying, but she was impressed by the way he seemed to vanish in a plume of fog and a shower of sparks. It was fun. She hadn’t felt this carefree since college, when somehow she was able to forget about her papers and her loans and dance the night away instead of going home to grind her teeth as she fell asleep.

*

When Poe didn’t return, Rey showed her business card to get backstage, convinced he was waiting for her. The only person there, though, was the lead singer, hidden in a corner making notes on his set list. She recognized him from the pattern of his face paint.

“Hi. I’m looking for my friend who disappeared,” she said. “In the last song.”

Did he look surprised that someone had snuck up on him, or was it just the makeup? It was like looking at camouflage: hard to even tell where his real eyes began.

He coughed and shook his head.

“You haven’t seen my friend?” she asked, not understanding.

He pointed to his throat.

“Oh, you—you lost your voice? Sorry,” she said. “But that was a great show.”

“Thanks,” he mouthed. He wrote something and showed her the paper. _You’re a great dancer_.

“I just got caught up in the music,” she said, trying not to blush. Now she felt a little self-conscious that somebody had been watching her dance after all. “It was so much fun.”

 _I really liked watching you_.

That was unexpected. But not unpleasant. Maybe she couldn’t give Snoke the stories he wanted, but at least she could have fun all right.

“Really,” she said, a little skeptically. “What did you like?”

He grinned—that was obvious, even with the makeup—and pointed to his smile.

She looked at where she thought his eyes were. She looked at the rest of his face, hidden behind a dappling of wild primary color. She looked at his hips, wrapped in skintight leather, and thought of them swiveling as he howled into the mic. She thought of how he’d turned his voice loose on highs like a primal scream and lows that rumbled in her chest.

She was on the verge of doing something monumentally silly, like Poe shrieking to be picked to go on stage. Something she hadn’t done since college, all because she’d realized she hated her job and some confident guy in a weirdly sexy getup said he liked looking at her smile.

Sweat prickled on her palms. “Would you like to take me back to your hotel?”

He laughed soundlessly and shook his head. Her heart sank. Of course the idea that he’d want to sleep with her was hilarious. He probably got offers like this all the time and already had a more attractive one waiting in his room.

He showed her the set list again and pointed to an address he’d written at the bottom, then to himself.

“Your house? Apartment?”

He nodded.

“Okay. I’ll, er, text my friend and we can go.” She sent Poe an if-I-go-missing-go-to-this-address message and got back _Oh good, someone recognized me from being on stage and im in a cab to his place!!!!!!! xxxxx_

That was both of them taken care of.

*

Rey made the taxi stop when they passed a McDonalds and her stomach growled, figuring she’d need energy for the rest of the night. She scarfed her chicken nuggets in the back seat, the singer watching her—or not, she still couldn’t read his face under the paint—and declining the one she offered. 

She still didn’t even know his name, and it made her gleeful. Totally cut loose, from her day, from the bullshit at work, from the usual cycle of text chat–mediocre date–mediocre sex–repeat. Maybe some of this guy’s creative energy would rub off on her, make her feel like creating something worthwhile again.

Up in his apartment, he put the nugget box in the recycling bin and gestured for her to sit on the couch. He held up a finger, like, One second. “I’ll go wash,” he whispered, and pretended to scrub his face.

“Why?” she said. She caught his hand and pulled, and he tipped over on the platform boots and fell on top of her, solid and warm and squeaky, because it might not have been real leather on his legs after all. “I like it. Stay here and let’s—get weird.” Not the smoothest line, but it got the message across. She twisted underneath him so she was lying on the couch and ran a palm over the crisped edges of his spiked hair.

“What does that mean?” he rasped.

“What do you usually do with people you bring home from shows? I mean, I have a condom in my purse.”

“You want to—?” he asked, barely audible.

“Let’s work up to it. Maybe you could start by kissing me?”

The makeup was somehow both waxy and slippery, but beneath it his lips felt nice. His body felt nice, too, even though it was heavy on top of her and his studded belt dug into her belly.

He did get a bit weird, though. He kept pulling his tongue out of her mouth to whisper things like what she thought was _I thought about this a lot_. She couldn’t really tell because his lips moved soundlessly in the optical illusion that was his painted face.

But everybody had their quirks. Rey, for instance, could never think of anything to say except _oh, my god_ when anybody went down on her. At least he was using the right amount of tongue.

It was like he was still performing, he seemed so into it. She wriggled until she could pull her dress over her head, and he gasped when he saw her bare skin. When she yanked his belt off and wrapped a foot around his back to get him to grind into her, he pressed his hips into hers like he was still humping the air on stage. After hearing nothing but _Can you do it again, but different_ for her stories at work all day, it was refreshing to be with someone who obviously wanted to _do_ her. A real turn-on, actually.

“Can I—” he started, then coughed. He stuck out his tongue and flicked it theatrically so she got the idea.

“Okay,” she said. If he wanted to, she’d welcome him with open legs. “The paint’s non-toxic, right?”

Many _oh, my gods_ later, he emerged from between her shaking thighs having smeared the makeup on his chin to mud and having made her come in a way that made her ask some serious questions. Had she always had a thing for leather pants that had just been awakened tonight? What about face paint? Was she going to have to start dating mimes? Or worse, clowns?

She might if they had a cock like his, Rey thought, staring up at it as he rolled the condom on and nudged her knees apart.

“You—” he began when he settled inside her, big and strange the way it always was the first time with someone new. He cleared his throat and tried again, but nothing came out.

“You don’t have to talk if it hurts your voice,” she said. “This feels good. Just pretend I’m the mic stand.” She rolled her hips to demonstrate, thinking of how he’d thrust against it to the beat.

He propped himself above her on his elbows and obliged, fucking her like he was following the drums, easy and unhurried. Except when she moaned, and he broke his rhythm to cover her mouth with a kiss.

Maybe it was time to call the chicken nuggets into action and do something besides lay there. Not that it wasn’t nice, but he was putting in a lot of effort, and Rey liked to reciprocate.

“Sit up,” she said, pushing at his chest. “Let me do some of the work.”

Instead of sinking onto him right away, she dragged herself up one leather-clad thigh, leaving a trail of fluid and face paint that would wipe right off—unless the pants weren’t faux after all. He lifted his hips to give her a better angle, more pressure on her clit, and watched as she worked her way up to where his fly was spread open around his cock. His thigh almost felt better than his tongue, and she was briefly tempted to grind herself to another climax before she remembered what she’d just told him.

She braced her knees on the couch and her hands on his legs, arching her back so he could suck at her nipples while she rode him, getting a faceful of tits and also smearing the rest of the paint from his nose on her chest. It was like being motorboated, such was his enthusiasm, except it made her gasp. First she apparently wanted to clowns to bend her like a balloon animal, now she wanted to have her boobs buzzed? Sure. Fine.

He coughed before he came, trying to tell her. Rey surprised herself by letting go of his thighs to pin his wrists.

“You don’t have to talk,” she repeated. “Just come.”

She couldn’t tell what he said when he tipped his head back and clutched her hands. Probably something else weird. It was certainly strange that he pulled out, pulled her down so they were both lying on the couch, and passed out almost immediately with his pants and boots still on. But his body still felt nice, with his warm chest snuggled against her bare back.

Hours later, Rey oozed out from under his arm, not wanting to wake him and have a conversation about either why she was leaving or why she’d stayed so long, and lowered herself to the floor. She held her breath as he sighed in his sleep and rolled over. The weight of his head had crushed the spikes on one side, and they flopped out like a row of cowlicks. It was kind of adorable.

She got dressed, fished the cardboard McDonalds box out of the recycling, and left it on the coffee table with her number, where he’d see it when he woke up.

 _That was fun. Text me sometime_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! In this chapter, Rey goes to a concert and then has sex with the singer of the band, thinking he's a total stranger and she'll never see him again (even though she wants to). In fact, he's someone she knows from work, and he thinks she recognizes him but doesn't confirm. She'll find out who it is in chapter three, but you can probably guess based on the relationship tags / the extremely unsubtle writing.


	2. Chapter 2

The singer didn’t text. He didn’t call. Which was too bad. Rey thought of him the next day, when she had to scrub her face and her cleavage twice to get all the paint off, and again the following day, when she saw a streak of blue on the toilet paper and convinced herself she’d caught some vaginal fungus known only to tropical-disease clinics. 

Next time she’d let him wash the makeup off. If there was a next time.

She could have looked him up. Called Poe to ask for the name of the band. Found them on social media and sent a message. Asked the magazine’s music columnist to put her in touch with the band’s management. Sent a letter to his apartment; the address was still in her text thread. Downloaded future albums and combed the lyrics for possible references to herself.

Hounding people was for work, though, not play. She’d shown her business card to get backstage, but she didn’t want to use her journalism skills to track down someone who wasn’t interested in seeing her again. That way lay madness, and probably more than one tearful why-doesn’t-he-want-me phone call with Poe. It wasn’t worth it, even if it had been good for a one-night stand. Weird, but good.

She’d resigned herself to disappointment by the time she was back in the office after the weekend, skin finally paintless and mind finally able to focus on something besides how embarrassingly loudly she’d cried out when she came on his face, all over the nose and chin and lips of a total stranger.

So her focus was tenuous at best. Just thinking about it while sitting at her desk made her face light up with desire. Rey buried her forehead in her hands and took a deep breath.

When she looked up, her eyes immediately met Ben’s. He turned away and wrote something in the notebook he always carried around. Probably _9:15 a.m. Loud sighing, indicating lack of focus on work tasks. Blushing, indicating lack of work-related thoughts_.

Her personal phone buzzed with an unknown number, and she started violently enough to whack her knee against the bottom of the desk. It _had_ to be the singer.

“Fuck _me_ ,” she cried. That was going to bruise. She cleared her throat to try to sound composed. “Hello?”

“Hi, I’m looking for Rey?” It was a woman’s voice. Rey ignored the little dip of disappointment in her stomach.

“Speaking.”

“This is Jessika calling from _Nice_ magazine. I’m reporting a story on whether Snoke is creating a toxic workplace environment at _Rogue_ and I wondered if you wanted to comment on that.”

Rey tried to think of something to say. She’d made hundreds of these calls, but now that she was on the other end, without a chance to do hours of research before the interview and rehearse all her questions, her mind was blank. _Did_ she have something to say? She flipped through all the days she’d sat at that desk, all the stories she’d published in _Rogue_ , and couldn’t come up with anything besides what she’d told Poe. _I really hate working for my editor_.

“How did you get this number?” That was good. She’d stall for time to think.

“From a former colleague of yours. He spoke very highly of you.”

“Who?” Rey demanded.

“Why don’t we set up a time to talk about it?”

_Dammit_. She’d been reeled right in. “Sorry, I—you know—I can’t,” Rey said. “No comment.” There. That was what she was supposed to say.

“I understand,” Jessika said calmly, clearly unable to hear the half-panicked thudding of Rey’s heart. “Call me back at this number if you change your mind. My deadline’s next Thursday.”

*

Rose gave her a look as Rey limped into the conference room for the pre-pitch meeting pitch meeting they’d booked to strategize about getting their story ideas approved by Snoke, just the two of them and Finn. “Did you pull a muscle typing too hard?”

“Hit my knee on the desk. The phone surprised me,” Rey said, taking a seat. She leaned in. “Have either of you heard from Jessika at _Nice_?”

“Oh yeah,” Rose and Finn said at the same time.

“I’m talking to her on Wednesday,” Rose continued. “It’s about time someone does a story on Snoke’s fuckery.”

“I talked to her Friday night. After my lunch got eaten up again by the video team,” Finn added.

“Making a note of that,” Rose said. “I don’t want to forget to tell her all the times I had to go be on camera.”

“Why does the video team need so much help all of a sudden?” Rey wondered.

Rose and Finn looked at each other, then back at her.

“They don’t need help. They need ‘diversity,’” Finn said, making air quotes. “They want to show a Black man and an Asian woman working here. Half the time we’re just sitting in the background and they’re like, pretend to send an email, pretend to have a conversation. The other half it’s all, come taste this snack and give your reaction. Once I made a joke about some sneaker trend and it got a bunch of views and comments. So now my joke is the title of a video series.”

“Sometimes I get asked for the female perspective,” Rose said, curling her lip in disgust. “Because I worked in women’s lifestyle before coming here. Now I can speak for all women.”

“Hang on,” Rey said. “What happened to that video series _you_ pitched, Finn? Where you were going to sit down with all these up-and-coming directors and have them film the interviews?”

Finn shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

“But it was a brilliant idea.”

“But it would have been too weird for our readers,” he said acidly, clearly repeating what Snoke had told him.

“And too weird for our advertisers,” Rose pointed out.

Rey opened her mouth, then shut it. What was there to say? It should have been obvious that the video team was taking advantage of Finn and Rose. 

She’d read about things like this happening at other magazines: editors being asked to do more work without any more pay, to be the face of the brand without any compensation. But to not recognize when it happened right in front of her, to her friends—what kind of journalist did that make her?

“Sorry they’re wasting so much of your time,” she finally said. “Can I—I don’t know—tell the video team to buzz off?”

Finn sighed. “You’re going to say no to those unpaid baby deer interns they send down here to get us? With their hungry little doe eyes that say, I can’t afford to eat in the company cafeteria?”

“Snoke loves the video team,” Rose said. “Do you want to fight him about it?”

Rey groaned. “Of course he does. Not really.”

“Me neither,” Finn said. “Should we talk about some pitches now? I can’t wait to hear all the dream stories Snoke will crush when we bring them up at the real meeting.”

*

Ham Day started as a joke. When her Slack pinged, Rey thought Ben was kidding. But he’d never joked with her before.

**Ben C. Solo**  
Any chance you’re hungry? There’s an entire ham in the sales area.

Her mouth watered hopefully, but she pasted the message into her chat with Rose and Finn to be sure it wasn’t a setup. There was no way someone had procured an entire ham and left it lying around. Free food was usually reduced to crumbs within seconds of its arrival at the _Rogue_ office.

**Rey**  
is this a trick to get us away from our desks  
and then tell snokesy we’re not doing any work

**Rose**  
isn’t $$$ still away

**Finn**  
who cares  
let him tell on us  
why are we still discussing  
HAM

The three of them speed-walked to the sales area to find—just as Ben had promised—an entire ham and a selection of rolls, pickles, and mustards on the counter where the magazine’s sales team usually kept their printer and extra pens. A true Monday miracle. One of those little moments of random grace the universe sometimes offered.

Where had it come from? Had someone lugged all this to the office? Not that it mattered. It was free food, and they were the first vultures to descend on the carrion. What they couldn’t eat in the sales area, they piled into teetering sandwiches to carry back to their own desks.

She was trying to get her teeth to fit around a triple-decker when she felt Ben’s eyes on her and realized she’d left him hanging. Licking her fingers and letting a pickle slice fall on her keyboard, she typed a message back.

**Rey**  
thanks for the ham tip  
how did you know about it?

**Ben C. Solo**  
You’re welcome.  
Do you know Hux? From sales?  
He had to cancel a dinner party.

That was good to know. Rey usually avoided Hux and the rest of the sales team. They were, in her opinion, a herd of big-mouthed know-nothings, long on talk and short on brains. She was happy to help when they needed advertorials written; ads were what paid everyone’s salaries.

Until the time Hux had asked her to write one three days before they shipped an issue, as though all she had to do was type up a Word doc and staple it to the rest of the magazine. As though he hadn’t been working there for three years and been sent a production schedule every month. She couldn’t believe he could still be that clueless about the work it took to actually make the book.

This was her chance to bypass them, though. Ben had to work with sales no matter what, setting up their meetings with Snoke. But if Ben was willing to pass her snack tips, she could eat the sales food without having to interact with the sales team. A galaxy-brain moment if she’d ever had one.

**Rey**  
i appreciate it  
i am ALWAYS hungry

**Ben C. Solo**  
I know.

Whatever gratitude toward Ben that the ham had engendered curdled into irritation. Whatever he thought he knew about her was only what he thought he’d seen while staring creepily from his desk.

He didn’t actually know anything about her. He just thought he did. She wiped the pickle juice off her keyboard and left his message without a reply.

*

**Rose**  
come to the bathroom RIGHT NOW  
the ghost is here

**Rey**  
impossible

**Finn**  
i’m not coming in the women’s room

**Rose**  
HURRY UP  
but be quiet  
don’t scare it away

**Rey**  
ghosts aren’t real

**Rose**  
they ARE real and i hear it!!!!!

**Finn**  
FINE

**Rey**  
it’s probably the plumbing  
it’s like 150 years old

**Finn**  
i’m in the men’s room  
i don’t hear anything

**Rose**  
it stopped  
it was this high-pitched moaning noise  
you scared it!!!  
it’s probably a child  
who was forced to work at the candy factory  
if we didn’t scare it we could free it

**Rey**  
stop checking slack in the bathroom

**Finn**  
it’s how 95% of phone-in-toilet incidents occur

*

She had already pulled her phone out to check if she had enough points for a free coffee when the text from a random number popped up.

_Tons of coffee left over from the sales meeting if you want me to save you one_

What timing. For some reason there was always enough in the budget to buy gallons of coffee roasted over artisanal flames from the independent shop for the sales meetings, while editorial staff had to BYO. 

But who would be texting her about it? Unfortunately not _him_ ; he had no idea she even worked at _Rogue_ , let alone that she liked to siphon the cold-brew off sales.

_I’ll bring it over when you get in_

Hux, maybe? Ben could have told him that she wanted a heads-up on free food. And Hux was usually friendly to her in a puppy-like way, bounding over when it was time to talk about ad placement but tilting his head in confusion when she pressed for actual information like the companies who were advertising, red hair flopping over his eyes.

After Ham Day, it wasn’t a total surprise that it was Ben who walked over with a takeaway cup. He probably got her number from the HR inventory of personal information that was supposed to be for emergencies only. Snoke treated it like the company directory.

Rey was still wary of him, since he still hadn’t helped her set up a meeting with Snoke to discuss her feature. She couldn’t figure out why anyone would side with the man standing around and watching over the editors who were actually doing the work. But there couldn’t be any harm in accepting snack tips and free coffees, even if it was a little weird that he’d suddenly started caring enough to offer them.

Rey reached up to take the cup as Ben moved to set it down. The instant their fingers brushed, his trembled, slopping coffee over the rim and onto the freshly printed layouts piled on her desk.

“Shit,” she said, grabbing a tissue and scrubbing it across the papers. 

“Sorry,” Ben said quickly. “I didn’t mean to ruin these. Let me.” He took the tissue and mopped the rest of the spill, then, to her surprise, grabbed her hand and wiped the coffee off her fingers, his touch gentle but sure.

“I can reprint them,” she said, a little stunned that he’d touched her and she hadn’t hated it. “I’m more disappointed to waste this perfectly good free coffee. You didn’t have to bring it over.”

He balled up the tissue and flicked a bank shot into her trash can. “It’s no problem. I always see you come in with a coffee on Fridays.”

“Keeping an eye on me?”

“Sorry,” he repeated. He shook his head. “I should have texted you earlier.”

“Why? You saved me from buying a coffee. And Slack is fine. You don’t have to text when we’re at the office.”

“Got it,” he said, face brightening. “I should get back. Lots of emails to recycle this week.”

“Okay.” She saluted him with the cup when he sat down at his desk again, and he smiled back.

A little smile stayed on her own face while she examined the stack of pages. But that was only because getting layouts was the best part of the job, a magic show that played out every month. No matter how many issues she worked on, she was always surprised by what the art team managed to conjure. How they transformed her words from wisps of thought that lived on her computer screen into the actual pages that would be printed. The unreal made real.

*

**Rey**  
big news

**Finn**  
booze on the free table???

**Rose**  
don’t leave us  
even for a better job

**Rey**  
i heard the ghost in the bathroom

**Rose**  
I TOLD YOU  
GHOSTS ARE REAL  
you’re probably sensitive from your childhood  
england is EXTREMELY haunted

**Finn**  
you’re sure you didn’t find free booze somewhere?

**Rey**  
it was this weird singing noise  
still prob just the sink

**Rose**  
did you tell it to stay in the bathroom?  
don’t let it follow you back to your desk

**Rey**  
no?  
wait  
what’s that? cold fingers on my neck?

**Finn**  
you’re possessed now  
too bad  
i liked you  
bye

**Rose**  
don’t joke about it!!!!

*

Later Rey swore that an actual groan rippled through the office when the email sprang up in everyone’s inboxes, asking _Rogue_ ’s entire staff to gather the following week for an “important announcement.” Those kinds of emails were almost always death knells of an era, heralding either mass layoffs or impending acquisition by a conglomerate run by people who talked about things like “generating pageviews” instead of “writing good stories.” And _Rogue_ was already owned by Empire Media, so it was probably layoffs.

“Nice working with you,” Finn said when she walked to his desk to discuss.

“It’s layoffs, right?” Rose said, dragging her chair over to join the two of them. “It was only a matter of time.”

“They’re going to fire all the editors with actual experience and replace us all with the interns from the video team. Or someone else they don’t have to pay,” Finn said glumly.

“Not that they’re paying us fairly,” Rose said. “We’ve done all those video appearances and haven’t seen a penny from them.”

“Because times are tough and they don’t have the budget for it?” Rey asked.

“We have a winner,” Finn said.

“It’s bullshit, though,” Rose said. “The budget thing. I talked to Snoke about doing a women’s vertical, sort of a _Rogue_ spinoff, that would have paid for itself with advertising. He still shot it down.”

Finn shook his head. “Of course.”

“Maybe we’ll get laid off and find new jobs somewhere that respects our ideas and pays us piles of money,” Rey said, half-joking, half-hoping to _The Secret_ it into existence. Finn and Rose burst out laughing.

“Good one,” Finn said. “Do you know any magazines that are hiring and not laying people off? I don’t.”

Rey sighed. “We’ll freelance?”

“And not get paid for six months? There’s no way I could swing that,” Rose said. “My landlord doesn’t take PDFs of my stories in lieu of rent checks.”

“Same.” Finn leaned forward. “What I’d really like is to start my own thing. Be my own editor. Run whatever I want.”

“Can you hire me?” Rose said. “I’ll be your deputy editor.”

“Me, too,” Rey said. “I’ll send you some clips.”

“Done,” Finn said. He glanced at his computer. “It’s quarter to. Are we also done for the day? I think we should continue this conversation over a pitcher. Instead of hanging out here while we wait to find out if we still have jobs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, the ghost + ben being nice? so many *~mysterious mysteries~*


	3. Chapter 3

Rey invited the writer for coffee to talk about the changes to the travel feature, figuring it would be easier to chat in person than to try to explain Snoke’s “I don’t understand” by email. That, and she wasn’t about to put it in writing that his feedback was garbage and she was sorry Jannah had to make changes at all.

But Jannah didn’t want to talk about the story.

“Who’s the guy?” she asked while they waited for their coffees.

“Where? Here?” Rey looked around the café but didn’t recognize anyone. They’d met at the office and then walked a ways; she didn’t want to end up with someone from Empire Media at the next table, eavesdropping while she slagged off Snoke. Not that it would matter if they were planning to announce layoffs at the all-staff meeting.

“At the office. I walked past him on my way to your desk.”

Rey shook her head.

“Blue shirt? Long-ish hair? Kind of hunched over like the desk is too small for him?”

Of course. “Oh, Ben.” Rey waved a hand dismissively. “He’s Snoke’s assistant. Not a new editor you need to know.”

Jannah scoffed. “I don’t need to know him for work reasons. Only personal ones.”

“Why?”

“Open your eyes. Think of all the things he could _assist_ with.”

“I don’t think he has a life outside of managing Snoke’s,” Rey said. “Every time we asked him to come for a beer, he told us he couldn’t. I’d rather he just tell us he’s too good to hang out with us lowly editors, getting our hands dirty actually making the magazine.”

They grabbed their drinks and headed for a table. “He’s not a writer?” Jannah asked. “I’m surprised.”

“Not unless you count emails that are, like, ‘Thank you for your attempt at contact; unfortunately dearest Dick has no space on his calendar from now until the end of time, I cannot lift a finger for you, goodbye.’”

“He’s not writing poetry in that little notebook?” Jannah pressed as they sat down.

“I’m positive that notebook is full of dirt on all of us. Like, a record of all the times I came in late or yawned or took a long lunch.” Rey slurped her coffee through her teeth, eager for the caffeine hit but aware it was still too hot to sip.

“I don’t know,” Jannah said. “I creeped on it when I walked by, and it looks like poetry.”

“Could be,” Rey said skeptically.

“Maybe he’s hiding a sensitive soul under that regulation-issue work shirt. You should find out,” Jannah insisted. “Or I will.”

“Have at it,” Rey said. She pulled a printout of the travel feature from her tote, unwilling to devote any more of the conversation to Ben and whatever misunderstood-man nonsense he was or wasn’t writing. “Anyway, I just wanted to say, I love the story, and you did a great job. But Snoke has asked for a couple changes.”

*

She’d dismissed Jannah’s theory at their meeting, but Rey thought about it more as she returned to the office and trooped, along with Finn and Rose, to the magazine’s biggest conference room for the dreaded “important announcement.” 

It was possible, she allowed, that Ben had his own creative projects on the side. He wouldn’t have been the first assistant to have taken the job to get a foot in the door. Even Ben had probably caught a scene or two of _The Devil Wears Prada_ on late-night cable. If he was into poetry, though, he probably turned his nose up at the kind of writing she was shepherding into print. _Rogue_ didn’t even publish anything as literary as fiction.

She couldn’t imagine that being Snoke’s assistant was worth it. It was galling enough to submit her writers’ beautifully crafted stories for the approval of someone who didn’t have a clue how to make them better. The idea of having to pick up his dry cleaning and buy his wife’s birthday present, to be on such intimate, subservient terms with someone so aggressively mediocre, turned her stomach.

Apparently Ben wasn’t bothered by it, though—or he didn’t think Snoke was so bad after all. He strolled into the room just after the editor-in-chief, held out his hands to take his boss’s coffee and phone, and settled into the first row. If she hadn’t been obsessing over her imminent firing, a little part of Rey’s brain might have taken a break to reminisce about how firm those hands had felt wiping the coffee off hers. How warm his fingers had been from holding the hot cup.

“Thank you all for coming,” Snoke said, as though they’d had a choice. “As you all know, we’re in a turbulent moment in time. Like so many other print publications, we are facing challenges we’ve never faced before.”

Rose’s foot was jiggling so hard the whole row of chairs was shaking. Rey put a hand on her friend’s knee. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “Even if we get laid off.”

“At least fire us with dignity,” Rose whispered back. “‘Turbulent moment in time’? What does that even mean?”

“At the same time, we’re all very lucky to be at a brand like _Rogue_ ,” Snoke droned on. “We have some of the best brand-name recognition in our target demographic, far ahead of our main competitors. It’s largely thanks to the work of our video team, which has been exceptional this past year.”

“I can’t stand it,” Finn muttered from the other side of Rose. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “How many of us are getting laid off?”

Snoke laughed. It was the first time Rey had ever heard him really laugh, not just chuckle with pity when an editor brought up an idea he was going to shoot down, and it was chilling. He really did live on a different plane from the rest of them, where the questions were about which vitamin injection to have next and where to spend the summer. Not whether they’d be able to pay rent the next month or retire, ever.

“Was that a serious question?” he asked, wiping a tear away.

“Yes,” Finn called. “How many?”

“Well—” Snoke glanced at Ben, who mouthed “Finn” broadly enough for everyone to see.

“Well, Finn,” Snoke continued, “there won’t be any layoffs today.” A sigh wafted through the room and, next to Rey, Rose’s foot stilled.

“In fact, I was leading up to some good news. Our brand is so strong that we’re creating a new spinoff: a women’s vertical. I’m pleased to say that I’ve asked Beau, who’s currently our lead video strategist, to lead it, and he’s accepted. Beau has built our video brand into a real powerhouse, and he’s done extraordinary work in telling the kinds of rich, diverse stories our audience has come to expect.”

Rose’s foot resumed its tapping.

“So next month, please keep an eye out for the launch of _Roguette_ , which will tell women’s stories in fresh yet powerful ways. Starting with a video series featuring up-and-coming female filmmakers that will actually be shot and directed by the filmmakers themselves.”

Finn sputtered and took out his phone. 

Snoke wasn’t done. “In the meantime, Beau may be asking some of you for support as we lead up to the launch date, so please be generous with your time as we prepare to expand what’s now the _Rogue_ family of brands to a whole new demographic.”

Rey’s phone buzzed with Finn’s message: a GIF of cartoon Hades bursting into flames of rage.

It wasn’t worse than being laid off, but it _was_ complete bullshit. The video team had built its success on taking credit for other people’s ideas while using those same people as set decoration, and now Beau was launching _Roguette_ , an idea stolen from Rose, with a video series stolen from Finn. Snoke could have hired anyone—any woman, especially Rose—to head the new vertical, and instead he’d chosen a younger version of himself. A mediocre guy.

And _Roguette_? God. They’d be laughed off the internet with that name.

*

For Rey, it was the travel feature; for Rose, it was _Roguette_. “This might actually be the last straw,” Rose shouted as they waited at the open bar. “Am I supposed to work here forever and watch every other Beau get promoted over me?”

“Using everyone’s ideas but their own?” Finn added, trying to wave the bartender over.

The club was packed, the music was pounding, and Escape Hatches, the signature cocktails, were flowing. Rollvo, the car company, had rented out the space to launch the BB-8, their newest, sportiest hatchback. Since they were one of _Rogue_ ’s biggest advertisers, Snoke had made it clear that the staff needed to show up and schmooze to show their gratitude. 

So they’d gotten decked out and turned out, determined to have a good night on the advertiser’s dime. There was no point going to a bar to commiserate when the drinks here were free.

“Who’s using everyone’s ideas but their own?”

They all turned as Hux loped up, wearing his usual grin and an unusually sharp suit for this special occasion.

“The video team,” Rey said. He tilted his head, confused. “Never mind. Want a drink? Finn’s trying to order.”

“It’s so busy! They did such a great job putting this together!” Hux looked around the cavernous room with something like wonder in his eyes. Then he spotted the bartender and called out. “Hey, man! It’s me, Hux! It’s been forever!” Not only did the bartender come over, he set down a glass to high-five Hux. 

“These are the _Rogue_ editors!” Hux continued. “Are you all thirsty?”

“We’ll each take two, please,” Finn said quickly.

“Ha! That’s why _Rogue_ is always so funny!” Hux actually chortled. He turned to the three of them while the bartender went to pour. “I used to work with that guy in marketing. So great to see him again. Oh, there’s Ben. Maybe he wants a drink. Ben! Do you want a drink?” He made a sipping motion.

“He can have one of mine,” Rose said brightly, to keep him from going back to the bartender. It was nice of Hux to hook them up with drinks, but his positive energy was going to get in the way of their bitchfest if he stuck around chatting about the glory days of marketing.

Ben, also in a suit that seemed barely up to the task of containing his shoulders, accepted the drink and joined their huddle. “Hux, do you know anyone else who’s working the event?”

“Oh, yeah, man. Why?”

“I keep seeing those trays of sliders, but they’re always empty by the time they get to me.”

“Those look so good, right? Let me go talk to someone. I’ll be right back!” He took his drink and squeezed through the crowd in the direction of the kitchen.

“Take your time,” Ben said to the back of Hux’s head.

“So it was nice of you to bail Snoke out in that meeting,” Rose said as soon as Ben turned back to the rest of them.

Ben took a sip. “It’s my job to help him.”

“Right, but he knows my name,” Finn said. “I’m the only Black guy on the editorial team. It’s not that hard.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Ben said, still unruffled.

“It’s disrespectful,” Rey said, jumping in. “We were all terrified of getting laid off, and Snoke laughed in our faces.”

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” she continued, indignant. “That’s what happens in media. It won’t happen to you, because he needs an assistant, but editors are always the first to go. We’re too expensive.”

“Snoke should be the one going,” Finn said. “Then they can hire someone who isn’t so horrible.”

“I’ve had worse bosses,” Ben argued.

“He steals ideas,” Rose said. “He promotes people who steal ideas. It’s not okay.”

“You’re a good-looking white guy,” Rey said. “Of course he’s nice to you.” She took a sip to cover her blush over how “good-looking” had just slipped out, but no one else seemed to notice. She was probably just thinking about it because Jannah had emailed that afternoon to file her revisions and to ask if Rey had read any of Ben’s poetry yet.

“I can’t wait for that _Nice_ story to come out. Maybe he’ll be forced to resign,” Rose continued.

“Did I tell you what my friend found?” Finn leaned in. “Apparently there’s a post from Rich-dollar-sign-Snoke on Instagram—from years ago—of him in an offensive Halloween costume. I told Jessika about it, but I’m not sure she followed up on it.”

“If something like that came out,” Ben asked, “would it be enough to make him step down?”

Rose scoffed. “It should be.”

*

The crush of people around the bar eventually swept them into a different conversation and out to the pulsing dance floor. They bobbed in the lee of the BB-8 model parked in the middle, where Hux found them as he skipped through the crowd with a server in tow.

“Who’s hungry?” he shouted. “I brought sliders!”

After the sliders came mini fish tacos, and after the mini fish tacos came another round of Escape Hatches, sipped to the pounding beat, and then Rey had to steady herself against the back of the car mid-shimmy. To her surprise, the rear door popped open.

“You have to get in!” Rose yelled. “Clown car!” _You are_ not _blushing over clowns_ , Rey told herself firmly. _You are not thinking about coming all over someone’s painted face_.

“Get in the car!” Finn urged, matching Rose’s volume. “We’ll all get in!”

Rey clambered in gamely, handing her drink off to Finn and squeezing herself into the hatchback. “It’s pretty small,” she called out.

“Ben next!” Hux bellowed. “There’s no way your legs will fit!”

“I’ll bet you twenty bucks they will,” Ben shouted, and somehow folded himself in next to Rey. 

Hux slammed the door shut and shook his head in disbelief. Rose pulled out her phone to take a photo, but in her excitement, it slipped through her fingers. She tugged Hux and Finn onto the dance floor, shouting about how they had better find it before the screen got stepped on.

“I guess we’ll just let ourselves out,” Rey said. With all the doors closed, the car was their own little bubble in the middle of the heaving crowd, quiet enough that she didn’t have to shout. She felt around for the trunk release, but Ben grabbed her wrist.

“Can we stay here for a minute?” he asked, still holding her hand. “It’s so noisy out there without earplugs.”

How old and allergic to fun _was_ he? He might as well have croaked something about wanting the kids off his lawn. That notebook was probably full of noise complaints as well as a record of each time she’d stopped work to go to the bathroom.

“We can stay if I can ask you a question. What’s in that notebook you’re always writing in?”

His face turned very red, which was obvious because, she suddenly noticed, it was very close to hers. It was the first time Rey had really been able to study it, and it was, to her surprise, not unattractive. She’d never realized how lively his eyes were, not quite smiling but faintly amused, like he was thinking about making a dentist appointment for Snoke. Or something else that made him happy.

“Mostly lyrics,” he said, in a too-casual tone.

Rey was shocked. Genuinely floored. “Lyrics?” she repeated. “For—for what? Songs?”

Ben swallowed. “A lot of new stuff, actually. Mostly, um, mostly—they sound raunchy but they’re actually sort of love songs.”

So he did have a side project. A creative calling. Maybe even, as Jannah had suggested, a sensitive soul under the crisp white shirt that was either straining across his chest, or they’d already breathed all the air in the car and Rey was imagining things. Even if Snoke wanted to promote him, Ben probably didn’t want to take her job.

“I hope that’s not weird,” he continued.

“Why would it be weird? You can write about whatever you want.”

He let go of her hand and wiped his face. Then he looked her in the eye. “I’ll just say it. The new songs are all about being with you.”

“But you don’t even know me,” she said. “Not from watching me at my desk.”

“You’re right. I should have called so we could get to know each other better. We’ve had a lot of shows, which is great, but it’s kept me really busy outside of work.”

“Why would you have called me?”

He frowned. “You left your number. On the box.”

“What box?” flew out of her mouth, automatically, and then it hit her. It was _him_. 

He was the singer. The singer was Ben. Fuck _her_. She’d banged the assistant whose eyes she met every time she looked up from her computer and she hadn’t realized it. She’d jerked beneath his tongue and rubbed herself all over his thigh and held his wrists while telling him to come and she hadn’t recognized him. 

Sure, she hadn’t really been able to see his face or hear his voice, and she’d glossed over the exchange of personal details in favor of swapping spit. Still. None of his references to lyrics or shows had clued her in. What kind of a journalist did it make her if she couldn’t see what was right in front of her?

Her face fell in disappointment with herself, and he drew back. “You didn’t recognize me. Fuck. I should have made sure. I was too excited thinking about how this was finally going to happen.”

“What do you mean, finally?”

“I meant what I said that night. I thought about it a lot. But I can keep those thoughts to myself. Unless you’re into me, too.”

Weeks earlier, she’d have rejected the suggestion outright. Now, in light of Ham Day and the coffee and Jannah’s comments and how his eyes looked up close, Rey considered it. 

She’d certainly been into his alter ego and his enthusiasm. He’d probably still let her come on his leg when he was Ben and not the lead singer of—the band whose name she still didn’t know. He definitely still had the same body under his suit as he had under his pleather, and it was close enough for her to smell traces of soap on his skin. 

She could just do some follow-up reporting—namely, fuck him again—to gauge her own interest.

“Do you want to get out of the car?” she asked. “We could start with kissing somewhere else. Like—like last time.”

“No. The windows are tinted,” he said, and kissed her there in the back of the car. 

It was better without the makeup: no waxy smear on her chin and cheeks, just the smooth warmth of his lips and the taste of the spiced pineapple syrup in the Escape Hatch. Still the right amount of tongue.

Ben wedged himself between the side of the car and the back of the rear seat, and stretched his legs out, pulling her between them. Half on the carpet, half on top of him, she pressed her hips into his while he ran his hands across her ass like he’d just been waiting for her signal to go from zero to sixty. Rey groaned. It was incredible to know how much he wanted her. If they kept going, she’d forget herself completely and do her follow-up reporting right there in the hatch.

She’d closed her eyes and started stroking his hair, now soft and lustrous, not spiked and crusty, dazed at being able to touch this familiar person in an unfamiliar way, when she dimly noticed that it was quiet around them. 

An emcee’s voice boomed out. “Welcome...to the launch...of the Rollvo BB-8. The clever little car that talks back to you!”

The dance-floor lights dimmed and a spotlight switched on over the car. Rey opened her eyes. It was dark enough outside the car and bright enough beneath the spotlight that the crowd could probably see inside, in spite of the tinted windows. The ring of faces was already turning to look.

She rolled off Ben and sat up. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she whispered hurriedly. “Not like this. Not with you.”

Everyone in the industry, tiny as it was, would know before the evening was out. Even before coming to work at _Rogue_ , she’d known from the grapevine that Snoke and the editor of _First, Order_ , the home-organizing magazine, had been caught kissing in the coat check at the Empire Media Christmas party one year, even though both of them were married to other people.

For years, she’d be the editor who got caught making out with the assistant in the back of a car at a press event. Not the brilliant mind behind features like “I Was the Villain in My Own Story—Until I Redeemed Myself” and “Bending the Rules: The Broken System That Produced a Gold Medal Men’s Gymnastics Squad.”

“Okay,” Ben said. She didn’t know him well enough to tell if he was hurt or disappointed from that single word. He ran a hand through his hair and swung his legs toward the back of the car. 

It was just in time. “Let’s hear it for the B! B! Eight!” the emcee said, and suddenly all the doors and the rear hatch popped open as the car beeped, like, ta-da!

Rey buried her face in her hands and peered out through her fingers. She thought she’d known mortification when, as an intern, she’d let the price of a velvet sofa go to print as $10,00 instead of $10,000, but she’d been wrong. _This_ was mortifying.

Ben wasn’t afraid of the spotlight, though. He crouched in the hatch, then grabbed the roof of the car and stood up with his feet in the trunk. “Who’s ready to rock?” he shouted in the screech she’d only heard come out of his mouth on stage, and leaped out, kicking, like he was jumping off an amp. The car chirped back.

For a second there was complete silence. Then one person started clapping, then another, and then the whole crowd erupted into applause. The DJ restarted the music, everyone turned back to their own circles, and Rey crawled out of the car unseen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> challenge: write a fic that doesn't involve cars or your characters getting trapped in a car  
> me: LOL NO *slams trunk*
> 
> Also, if you thought she would have recognized him FOR SURE, check out [this story](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-ao-exit-interview-12-years-in-the-blue-man-group) about one of the actors who was in Blue Man Group and then tell me you expected him to look that way in real life. (Or tell me I'm actually terrible at recognizing people.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Rey**  
quick question

**Finn**  
will i become the _rogue_ correspondent in LA?  
absolutely

**Rose**  
don’t leave us!!!

**Rey**  
click this link and tell me  
does this sound like the ghost?

**Rose**  
OMG YES  
how did you find this song

**Finn**  
she’s possessed, remember?  
the ghost put it on the internet  
and then led her there

**Rose**  
ok ty for your opinion, sir

**Rey**  
no, i went to see this band with my friend  
watch the video  
then guess who the lead singer is

**Finn**  
your friend?  
one of your writers?  
uhhhhhh

**Rose**  
HOLY SHIT  
THIS IS AMAZING  
lollllllllll

**Finn**  
who is it?!?!

**Rose**  
it’s ben  
like snoke’s assistant  
the ghost is his falsetto

**Finn**  
OH MY ACTUAL GODDDDDD  
why isn’t he wearing those pants to work

**Rose**  
excellent question  
i’m not an expert on straight men  
but is he kind of hot in these outfits?

**Finn**  
it was kind of hot when he jumped out of the car  
for sure  
i am looking respectfully  
are you looking respectfully, rey?

**Rey**  
anyway great news  
there’s no terrifying child ghost

What she didn’t type out over Slack were the full results of her extensive journalistic inquiry into Ben’s band, KYLO, which, according to a years-old interview, stood for Kiss Your Legs Open and was made up of “horned-up boys hiding their sweetness behind juvenile humor, face paint, and leather.”

After finding out that he was the lead singer, she’d gone full Woodward and Bernstein, scrolling through the band’s social posts, reading reviews of their album and their live shows (which, she realized, was how Poe had known about the magic trick they did during “Pussy Wizard”), and even browsing their merch, which was mostly shot glasses and cheesy T-shirts but seemed to have been conceived by an actual graphic designer.

For all their goofiness, KYLO was surprisingly successful, with a cult following and a steady stream of shows around the city, plus the occasional weekend booking along the East Coast. No wonder Ben hadn’t had time to go out and shoot the shit after work.

Her research only slowed when she came across a thread dedicated to lusting after them (she’d never admit, not even to the most determined fact-checker, that she’d hadn’t clicked it randomly but after googling “kylo hot” for the purpose of feeling smug about her taste in musicians) and she paused to daydream about playing Deep Throat with Ben. The more she replayed that night in her head, the more she was convinced he’d said her name when he came and she hadn’t registered it.

It was strange to reconcile two separate people—one she’d slept with, one she worked with—into one person. 

She performed a similar exercise after nearly every date, though usually it was working out how the same guy who’d let her have more than half the dessert at dinner could be the same one who’d balked at giving her more than one orgasm in bed. But it was weirder this time because there seemed to be such a big divide between the man who’d seemed so free on stage and given her such an enthusiastic working-over, and the man who seemed content to work for Snoke and to side with his horribly average boss.

Ben, on the other hand, probably wasn’t surprised that the same competent woman who strode around the office in crisp blazers could have been the same one to completely fall apart when he got his mouth on her. He’d admitted to thinking about making her fall apart while watching her roll up her sleeves and fire off emails. He could see her for both the professional she was and the object of desire that it was nice to be sometimes. 

The problem, of course, was that he _did_ see her all the time. If she got to know him and it didn’t work out, she’d be reminded of it every time she glanced away from her screen between nine and five.

*

As juicy as the news was that Ben was leading a secret life as the cat-in-heat-inspired frontman of a rock band, Jessika’s story was all that anyone could talk about. If Ben actually had been keeping track of Rey, Rose, and Finn in his notebook, the entries would have been _10:11 a.m. Incessant chatter about_ Nice _story that finally came out. 11:14 a.m. Discussion ongoing. 11:45 a.m. Still no sign of work being done. Conversation has moved to coffee machine._

Jessika had done a brilliant job weaving stories from Rose and Finn, who were quoted anonymously along with a few other sources, into a damning narrative about how Snoke had fostered a toxic environment at the magazine and let it flourish. It made _Rogue_ sound like a terrible place to work, where incredible stories were killed for no reason other than Snoke’s lack of interest in topics beyond himself, women weren’t taken seriously, and people of color were paid unfairly and never promoted. Rey was already angry at how badly her friends had been treated; it made her furious to see it laid out in clear-eyed, fact-checked prose.

But it also made them gleeful to read. Finn had strewn their private Slack channel with get-the-popcorn GIFs. Empire Media could ignore employees’ complaints, but it couldn’t pretend the big name at the top of the _Rogue_ masthead hadn’t just been publicly thrashed by another big-name outlet. 

Snoke had even humiliated himself by contacting Jessika’s editor and demanding that _Nice_ kill the story after she’d reached out to him for comment—a surefire way to get a journalist to double down on her reporting. Jessika had recounted his demands, in all their ridiculous entitlement, in great detail in the published piece.

Finally he would get what was coming to him: a forced resignation and a few years at a marketing firm, shut out of media jobs. It would prove that the _Rogue_ staff had made a difference by speaking up and that change was possible. Rey had listened to her friends’ stories and come to the conclusion that Snoke should resign. Now that Empire management had all the information, she was confident they’d make the right decision, too.

And if there was any doubt that he would have to go, the coup de grâce came around lunchtime, when someone with the Twitter handle BigRedFlag posted a thread about the Instagram photo showing Snoke in an offensive Halloween costume. _12:33 p.m. Collective gasp. 1:16 p.m. Conversations divided between speculation as to how Snoke could be so stupid as to dress this way in the first place and speculation about who is behind the BigRedFlag account._

Rey and Rose thought it was Finn; after all, he knew about the photo and brought it up at the Rollvo event. He denied it, though, insisting that he’d told Jessika about it and left it with her to chase. “How am I tweeting when I’m talking with you?” he asked, logically. “Besides, it’s more exciting this way. Someone else wants to see Snoke resign just as much as we do.”

*

Rey nearly got a faceful of wire hangers when she got off the elevator on the ground floor, hungry for lunch but somehow repulsed by all of the cafeteria options. What she really wanted was another Ham Day. 

The hangers jerked away from her eyes and swore. It was Ben, grappling with an armload of Snoke’s dry cleaning that seemed determined to slide out of his capable hands.

“It’s fine.” She stepped to the side to keep walking out of the building, but he kept talking.

“Are you going for lunch?”

“Yeah. Not sure where.” This was so awkward. The last time they’d been this close, she’d been sprawled on top of him in the back of the BB-8, then told him she couldn’t be seen with him.

Of course, she’d allowed herself to think about him plenty since the event, whether it was googling pictures of him singing or putting a pillow between her legs and pretending it was his thigh. (The down was nowhere near as firm as she needed, and she wasn’t desperate enough—yet—to straddle the arm of her sofa.)

But afterwards she avoided his gaze at the office and told herself that nothing else could happen while they worked together. Especially not while Ben worked for Snoke. Rey wouldn’t even jokingly admit to Rose and Finn over Slack that she’d given Ben some consideration and he was _definitely_ hot.

“Come with me,” he said. “I’m going to pick up Snoke’s lunch.” So he was trying to be nice. If he was willing to go back to offering her food without making her rehash why she’d stopped kissing him, she could accept. She hoped he understood that the problem wasn’t him, necessarily; it was work.

“He can’t have it delivered?” she asked.

“It’s either too cold or too squished by the time it gets here.” Rey would have been rolling her eyes, but Ben said it without a trace of irony.

He ran upstairs to drop off the dry cleaning, then they walked together to the restaurant. Ben, she noticed, shortened his strides so she didn’t have to trot to keep up.

“How’s the songwriting going?” Rey asked. She was curious about it—and she was too chicken to ask whether the _Nice_ story had changed his mind about Snoke. She suspected it hadn’t even made him mad, because here he was, still running around town doing his boss’s errands and looking happy to do them. It was disappointing to think that he had all the facts and chose to ignore them.

His eyes lit up. “I don’t want to jinx it, but great, actually. We came up with this killer riff a couple days ago—” he paused and sang a few bars— “and I’ve got some ideas for a chorus to go with it.” He’d sped up in his excitement, and stopped so she could catch him.

“Do you have enough for a whole new album?”

“I think so,” he said. “I wasn’t sure at first, but it’s coming together now. You have to trust the process, you know? Or maybe it’s different when you’re _writing_ writing.”

“No, I get it. I have a whole routine I have to go through when I’m starting a draft.”

“Is that why I see you tossing M&Ms into your mouth sometimes?” he asked, then added quickly, “I’m joking. I like to open my window and howl into the night to get into the KYLO mindset.”

Picturing that made her smile. “You don’t paint your face?” she asked.

He laughed. “It’s hard to get off. Sometimes I put the boots on, though. My neighbors love when I stomp around.”

“Don’t you ever wish you could just do that for a living?” she asked seriously. “Wouldn’t you rather write songs than pick up Snoke’s lunch?” Now that she knew he had a band and wasn’t writing poetry with an eye to stealing her job, she could enjoy hearing about his artistic endeavors. It was nice to talk like this, one creative person to another, the way she could with Finn and Rose.

He thought about it. “I don’t mind this job. It pays the bills,” he said. Then he looked at her slyly. “My coworkers are hot.”

“You think I’m hot?”

“What is this, an interview?” He poked her playfully in the shoulder. “I heard you call me good-looking at the Rollvo event.”

She blushed, feeling like she’d been stung by the press of a single finger, and tried to get back on track. “It’s just the two of us talking. You were saying how this job pays the bills?”

“It does. That way I can do whatever I want with KYLO. I don’t have to worry about whether the music sells.”

“What about getting paid to do what you love?” she pressed. “I was ecstatic when I got my first paying job at a magazine.”

“Are you still ecstatic, though?” he asked. “It seems like you’re frustrated every time I bring a story over with Snoke’s feedback.”

Rey sighed. “No,” she admitted. “He shoots down all my best ideas. Whatever makes it into print has been watered down so many times it’s like a homeopathic tincture. Useless.”

“Your finished stories aren’t bad, but the earlier drafts are always much better,” he stated, like it was a certifiable fact.

She pulled a skeptical face. “How would you know?”

“I read them when Snoke is away,” he said. “Which is pretty often. I can see everything on the server, and I like to look at your edits.”

“You’re a one-person surveillance team.”

He glanced at her quickly, then turned to look where he was going while he spoke. “I told you I really like watching you. And that I’ll stop if it bothers you.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” she said, flushing again. “But I need to get away from _Rogue_. It’s already sucked the joy out of my professional life. I don’t need my personal life wrapped up in that place, too.”

“Hmm,” he said. “What do you want?”

“From a job or from you?”

“For food. We’re here.” He opened the door of the restaurant and motioned her inside.

She could smell something sizzling in butter. “If I get the steak sandwich, can you put it on the company card?”

“Sorry,” he said stubbornly. So he wasn’t being _that_ nice. “I don’t want to get fired.”

*

This time, there was no promise of an important announcement. Only a calendar invite to a mandatory all-staff meeting. They filed back into the same conference room and took the same seats. Rose started tapping her foot before Snoke swept into the room and dropped his coffee and a stack of papers in Ben’s lap. Even the same suits from Empire were there, waiting in the corner in case things got out of hand.

“Who here has read the story?” Snoke asked. He didn’t need to specify which story. He waited silently, a neutral expression on his face. There was nothing to give away whether he’d punish them for having read the story or punish them for being ignorant.

At first, nobody dared react. Then Ben’s hand went up, in the front row—he couldn’t see that no one else had raised theirs, or maybe he didn’t know not to be the first one—and then a few from the sales team in the second row, and then everyone else’s, en masse.

“I see,” Snoke said, still not showing any emotion. “Good. Then I don’t need to review the allegations it presented. Allegations which I would find deeply disturbing if true.” 

He motioned to Ben for his reading glasses and phone, and consulted his notes before continuing to speak.

“Fortunately, I’ve reviewed the story with the legal team, and we’ve concluded that much of it is overblown and, at worst, absolutely false. We at Empire Media pride ourselves on our fair practices, including our pay standards. I have spoken to the story’s editor and demanded a retraction.”

Finn let out a laugh that he tried to turn into a cough. _Bullshit_ , he mouthed when Rey turned to look at him. _Right?_ she mouthed back.

“I do want to address the story’s reliance on anonymous sources, which I found disappointing. If anyone wants to criticize the work I’m doing here, I would invite them to discuss it with me in person,” Snoke said. He sighed as though pained by what he was about to say. “Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone would rather hide behind anonymity and talk about personal issues with someone outside the _Rogue_ family. Please ask Ben to schedule a time with me, and you’ll find that my calendar is always open.”

“Think about it for two fucking seconds and you’ll understand,” Rose whispered to Rey, shaking her head. “Why is he the worst?”

Snoke was nowhere near done. “It was also very upsetting to see confidential emails leaked. I want to remind you that this is a violation of company policy and of the agreements that you all signed when you began working here. In the future, we will be taking these kinds of leaks very seriously and tightening our security if needed.

“The problem with being at the top of your game, as we are at _Rogue_ , is that people want to come after you. They want to knock you off your pedestal,” he continued. “But I don’t want that to affect morale. 

“I want to reassure all of you that we won’t stop until the story has been retracted and the writer has issued a public apology. In the meantime, let’s not let a little shoddy reporting get in the way of what we’re doing, especially the upcoming launch of _Roguette_.”

Finn cleared his throat. Snoke peered out over his glasses. “Is there a question?” he asked.

Finn stood up. “I have a question. Are you going to resign?”

Everyone gasped in surprise and then tried to pretend they hadn’t. No one had ever openly challenged Snoke in an all-staff meeting. Except for Finn, of course, during the “important announcement” about _Roguette_.

“Like I said, if you have concerns, please schedule a time with Ben and I’d be happy to talk one-on-one,” Snoke said, glancing back at his phone.

“How about now?” Rose called. “You seem free now!”

“We should talk about it now,” Finn said. “While everyone is here. You’re the leader of this magazine, and I think you should take responsibility for the culture you’ve created here.”

Snoke’s grip on the phone tightened. “I hardly think I need to resign because of one story that’s not even true.”

“Then you should resign over that photo from your Instagram.” Another rustle went through the room as everyone who hadn’t seen the photo tried to pull out their phone to look it up.

“If we all started resigning over social media posts from years ago, there wouldn’t be anyone left to work,” Snoke said.

“It doesn’t matter when it’s from,” Finn shot back. “You shouldn’t have posted it in the first place. You think people who aren’t white are just something to dress up as. Or to use as props on a video set.”

“Again, this is not something we need to discuss—”

“You’re right,” Finn interrupted. “We shouldn’t be discussing it. You should resign.” His voice was clear, but his hand was shaking a little.

“I refuse to give in to this kind of witch hunt,” Snoke spluttered. “As members of the media, we should be embracing free speech instead of trying to censor it.”

“This is what he thinks censorship is?” Rose whispered to Rey incredulously. “I can’t.”

“So you’re refusing to go?” Finn asked.

“Of course I am. This is all meant to make me step down. But I intend to stay and fight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> witch hunt, free speech, censorship: really ticking all the boxes on the i'm-being-oppressed bingo card there. he's gotta go!
> 
> further reading on "it's just a job" and getting paid to do what you love: [the dream job is dead. long live the good enough job.](https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/the-good-enough-job) (which, i know refinery29 got called out for pulling a lot of the same shit as _bon appétit_ , but oh my god, that kicker.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like pizza, because this delivers EXTRA CHEESE

The conference room was uncomfortably silent. Were they all supposed to accept that Snoke was staying, go back to their desks, and keep working as though nothing had happened? Was there really no way to get rid of him? If the _Nice_ story wasn’t enough to force him to resign, the tweets about his Instagram photo should have done the trick. But he was apparently immune to shame.

Then a chair at the front squeaked, and Ben stood up.

“Finn and Rose are right,” Ben said calmly. “If you won’t go—”

“I think I made that clear,” Snoke said testily.

“Then maybe it’s time for the rest of us to go,” Ben said. “Starting with me. Good luck with your emails. Oh, and your wife’s birthday is next week. Or is it?”

He dropped Snoke’s stack of papers on the floor and stalked out of the conference room, letting the door slam behind him.

Whispers erupted. No one had ever resigned in protest and, judging by the look of fury on Snoke’s face, it was a completely unexpected betrayal from Ben. Rey, too, was shocked that he would go from dry-cleaning duty to this mic-dropping exit speech. It was a big risk if he ever wanted to work in the industry again. Editors could always quit and do some freelance writing; assistants, by the nature of their job, had to work for someone.

Suddenly Rey saw what she needed to do. It wasn’t enough to put the information out there and hope that change came around, trusting that the facts would change people’s minds, like she’d thought.

She couldn’t hide her face and leave it to Ben to do something, like she had in the back of the BB-8. She couldn’t let Rose and Finn keep talking and talking, turning themselves inside out just to try to get management to listen. She’d have to act, even though she didn’t want to.

Rey squeezed Rose’s knee and stood up.

“I think—” she said at the same time as Hux started in with, “I have something—”

“You go ahead,” Rey said.

“Thanks,” Hux said. “I’ll make it quick. I have something to announce. I’m BigRedFlag!” A beat passed, and then he added, “I’m not resigning. I just wanted to say I wrote those tweets, while we’re sharing. Okay, you can go now, Rey!”

“Uh, thanks,” she said. “I _am_ resigning in protest. For the way my friends on the editorial team have been treated.”

Rey paused. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, not with everyone’s eyes on her.

It probably didn’t matter, though. She’d done it. She strode past Snoke and out of the conference room, barely registering the slam of the door as she sagged against the wall and sank down, taking deep breaths. Quitting had been an even bigger split-second decision than asking the singer to take her back to his apartment, probably with long-term consequences for her career _and_ credit score, and now she felt regret sniffing around the edges of the thrill.

“Did you quit, too?” Ben said from a few yards away. Rey looked up to see him standing in the hall, like he’d been waiting for her. Or listening to see how the rest of the meeting played out.

“Yeah,” she said, exhaling. “I did. My speech wasn’t as good as yours, though.”

“I do have some experience performing in front of crowds,” he said, coming closer.

“And Hux announced that he’s BigRedFlag, in case you were wondering,” she added.

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Is he? I wonder how he found that photo.”

“I know! He really doesn’t seem like the type to do a deep-dive on someone’s page, unless—” She thought for a moment. “Did you send it to him? You were there when Finn was talking about it.”

“Finn sent it to him. I simply suggested that Hux might want to share it. Widely. He’s very excited about all of his new followers.” He was standing above her now, close enough for her to see that one shoelace was about to come untied. She motioned for him to sit next to her, but instead he reached for her slightly sweaty hand and pulled her to standing. Her heart, already pounding, somehow beat even faster at the contact.

“We should probably leave before everyone else comes out,” he said.

“I guess,” she said. They started walking toward their desks. “What are you going to do now?”

“Write some more songs. Work on my vocals,” he said, still grasping her hand with one of his own and ticking his to-dos off on the fingers of the other. “Record this album. Take some more singing lessons. I took a couple so I won’t lose my voice after every show.”

“Did you ever practice at work?” She suspected she already knew the answer.

“Oh, yeah. You should hear the acoustics in the bathroom.”

“I did,” she said. “We could hear you singing in the women’s room. Rose thought it was a ghost.”

“That’s good,” he said, excited. “I could write something with a ghost part.”

“Like one of those murder ballads, but a rock version.”

“I’ll give you a writing credit. What else are you going to write now that you’re free of Snoke?”

“Probably freelance until I find another full-time job,” she said with a sigh. “I hate applying, but I’m a white woman with a bunch of experience. Someone will want me as an editor. And I have a little bit saved if not.”

“You didn’t quit to have total creative freedom?”

Rey turned it around. “Why did _you_ quit, Ben? I thought this was just a job to you.”

“Like you said, I’m a good-looking white guy. If Snoke wasn’t going to listen to Finn and Rose and everyone else who talked to Jessika, I figured maybe he’d listen to me. Or that my quitting would scare him,” he said. “Snoke depends on having younger versions of himself look up to him. If I don’t want to be like him, then he has nothing. He can’t be the leader of _Rogue_ without any followers.”

“So you _did_ care what was happening?”

“I did when I heard about it. When you explained it at the Rollvo event. You’re right, though. It is—was—just a job. I’ll find something else.”

Was it weird that it turned her on to hear he’d actually listened to what she and Finn and Rose had to say? She decided to go with it. She was on a roll today.

“What are you doing now?” she asked.

He looked confused. “Besides writing more songs and finishing this album?”

“Like right now,” she said. “I told you that I didn’t want my personal life wrapped up in my miserable job. But we don’t work together anymore.”

“That did cross my mind,” he admitted. “When I decided to quit.”

“I meant it. It’s the only reason I kicked you out of the car. I wouldn’t do it again.”

“In that case, I’m free all afternoon.” 

Rey looked him in the eye. “Would you like to take me back to your apartment?”

This time, without the face paint, she could see how easily Ben’s eyes lit up at her suggestion. “Let me grab my notebook from my desk,” he said.

*

They made it from the office to his apartment without any trouble, unless Rey counted her disturbingly physical reaction when she eyed how Ben’s hand wrapped all the way around the subway pole.

Once his front door clicked shut behind them, though, the inertia ran out and they stood awkwardly in the entry. Rey fiddled with the rolled-up sleeves of her blazer, determinedly ignoring the stickiness in her underwear, and Ben rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, still clutching his notebook, both of them suddenly too shy to go any farther. It was silly. The couch was only a few feet away. His lips were only inches away if she stood on tiptoe.

Asking a stranger to fuck her had been easy. She thought she’d never see him again and that she was only one in a steady stream of post-show partners, so it didn’t matter what he thought of her.

It was harder to find the words to tell Ben, from work, that she wanted to sit on his lap and absolutely destroy the khakis he’d worn to the office by using his thigh to make herself come. She would also accept lying back on the couch so he could flick his tongue at her clit, but there were so many layers of clothing between standing upright by his neat stack of mail and being splayed open with his nose stuck in her cunt.

Thank fuck for the notebook.

“Can I see some of your lyrics?” she asked, tapping the cover. “Or hear them? If you sing them? I guess reading only makes sense when you’re looking at someone’s writing.” They weren’t even having sex and she was already babbling.

“Not yet,” he said. Her question inspired him, though. He put the notebook on top of the mail and took her hand. She couldn’t believe she’d been able to concentrate on work after he wiped the coffee off her fingers that one Friday. How had she failed to notice the unbelievable heat of his skin, the weight of his thumb as he rubbed the back of her hand?

“I don’t use my own stuff to—when I’m—” he was saying.

“About to get someone into bed?” Turning it into a question made it feel less scary.

“Is that what’s happening?”

She nodded.

“Good. Anyway, it’s cheesy,” he said, pulling her to a hallway that she hoped led to the bedroom. “And there’s already a song about what I have in mind.”

He took her other hand and guided her through the doorway, walking backwards until the backs of his legs hit the bed. He sat down, knees wide, and kept pulling until she stumbled between them and nearly fell into his chest. Then he moved his head, so her mouth landed on the cushion of his lips, and caught her by the waist. 

His hands didn’t linger. They worked away eagerly while he kissed her, pushing her blazer off her shoulders and unbuttoning her blouse. This she could work with. His enthusiasm made her bold.

Rey grabbed his wrists and redirected them to the front of his own shirt, noticing as she did how far his cock had already tented the front of his slacks.

“I’ll do myself,” she promised, wiggling out of her bottoms. “What’s this song you had in mind?”

Ben tossed his shirt aside and grinned as he slid his pants off. “‘She was a fast machine’?”

She burst out laughing. “She kept her motor clean? _Really_?”

His grin turned wicked as he laid back on the bed, naked, and pulled her on top of him. “She was the best damn woman that I’d ever seen.”

The thing was, he actually meant it. He wasn’t just performing for her. Her cheeks flamed. “That’s not cheesy?”

“Oh, it is.” He lifted his head and pressed on her back until her tits were in his face and he could mouth at them, dragging his tongue along their contours and his lips across her nipples. “But it’s a classic.”

She groaned, but more because it felt like the best thing that had happened all day, and shifted so her clit lined up with the head of his cock, making him grunt into his mouthful of cleavage. He squeezed her ass as he laid down, encouraging her to keep scooting up and up his chest. Her clit rubbed the hair low on his belly, his navel, the ridges of his abs, until she couldn’t spread her thighs wide enough to get over his chest and stopped. Her wetness pooled in the dip of his sternum.

“Little more,” he said, squeezing harder. “I want you to knock me out with—well, your not-American thighs.” He lifted his hips like tilting them was going to make her slide all the way down to his mouth.

“Do you remember what comes next?” he asked as she obliged and climbed onto his face, knees around his neck. He patted her ass for doing what he wanted. “Taking more than her share? Had me fighting for air?”

He didn’t wait for her to reply, which was considerate because she couldn’t remember anything but the feeling of his tongue lapping her up. This time she could barely even manage an _oh, my god_ while his hands held her down and his mouth worked her mercilessly, refusing to relent as the pleasure built and built and she whimpered over and over. If it wasn’t for his fingers anchoring her, the heat would have shot from her clit up her spine and borne her away like a hot-air balloon.

It wasn’t until she’d come against him, feeling her own stickiness on his chin every time she shuddered, that she remembered the way his cock had strained against his pants. She groped behind her until her fingertips brushed the leaking head, making him groan.

“I want you to come, too,” she said, too wrung out to care if he thought it was too forward.

He gripped her hand with one of his, using both palms to stroke himself. “She told me to come,” he panted to her, trying for cocky but too overcome, “but I was already there.” He almost bucked her off when he finished, hard, his come spurting hot across her back.

Then he sighed with satisfaction and pulled her face down to his. “That takes us to verse two,” he informed her. “Had to cool me down to take another round.”

“Just one more round?” she whispered into his ear.

“Oh, no. It’s right there in the chorus,” he said. “Or do you need to stop at McDonalds again to go all night long?”

She did her best, even though, as the afternoon melted into evening, she started to worry a little that her body would give out before his enthusiasm. He let her turn around and struggle to get her mouth around his cock while he lapped at her cunt some more. He lifted her up and she set herself down on his cock; he watched, enraptured, with a thumb on her clit and a finger circling her ass, and obeyed when she told him to come inside her.

She watched his eyes brighten when she came back from the bathroom to find him sitting up in bed, poking at a delivery app on his phone, and it gave her the confidence to climb onto his thigh and tell him she wanted to come like that. Then she watched his eyes darken while he lifted his hips to help her and whispered into her hair about how good she looked using him.

After they ate the noodles he’d ordered, he carried her back to the bedroom and tossed her on the bed. She’d barely stopped bouncing on the mattress before he was inside her, hooking her feet over his shoulders and hauling her hips toward him so he could go deeper. The bed frame shook. The walls probably did, too.

*

“Beers are on me this time,” Rey said, handing one over to Poe. “Since you came all this way to see me.”

He frowned as he took a sip. “You got the tickets, too,” he said, suspicious. “How are you paying for all this? I thought you quit your job in a blaze of glory.”

“I did. I’m doing lots of freelance, though.” 

Empire had eventually pressured Snoke to resign, which he did with a flounce, hissing all the while about how his rights were being trampled. He would slink away for a few years before making a comeback, and of course, editors who were practically clones of him were still in charge at other magazines.

The better news was that they’d promoted Finn to take his place, and he was already turning _Rogue_ around. He’d asked Rose to lead the launch of _Roguette_ (and to think of a different name), which was garnering buzz. It was clear they were going to do great things now that they had more power and a bigger budget, building on each other’s ideas and hiring people they’d only dreamed of working with before.

He’d also tapped Rey as a contributing editor. It paid less than her old job, and she wouldn’t get to assign stories to freelance writers anymore. It meant, however, that she could write for the magazine without having to go to the office. 

Writing for Finn made her push herself harder, wanting to impress him, and he refused to give her a break just because they were friends, asking for revision after revision until the stories were the best they could be. She could tell working with him would make her better. As far as freelance gigs went, it was an amazing one.

The men of KYLO pranced out to excited screams, many of which came from Poe. Rey saluted Ben with her beer; in return, he stuck out his tongue and gave her a lewd hip thrust that made her cheeks flush and her heart swell a little.

“I’m actually going to follow the KYLO tour and do some travel stories,” she told Poe in the pause between songs.

Poe grabbed her arm. “I’m sorry, maybe I don’t understand words like an editor does. You’re going on tour with them?”

She nodded. The band had decided to play a few small venues in a few more provincial European cities before Ben found another office job. Since she had the same freedom to travel (and he’d asked if she’d be interested), she’d decided to follow them, making plans to check out food tours and museums while he did sound checks.

“Did I turn you into a superfan?” Poe asked, a knowing smile on his face.

“Didn’t I tell you this story?” She knew she hadn’t. It was going to be so delicious to wipe that smile away.

“What story?”

“Last time we went to a KYLO show, I went home with the singer,” she said casually.

Poe actually spat out his beer. “Him?” he shrieked, jerking his head toward Ben’s feet.

Rey nodded again. “I’ve seen him a few times.” More like lots of times. So many that after this show, she was going to eat the leftovers in his fridge instead of stopping for fast food.

“You haven’t.” Poe was still astonished, staring at Ben so slack-jawed that Ben looked down between sips of water and twisted his legs to make sure his pants hadn’t ripped.

“Yeah,” she said. She couldn’t help but grin. “I didn’t recognize him with all the makeup. But it turns out we used to work together.” And, maybe, she was starting to think, maybe they _worked_ together, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A [refresher](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo2qQmj0_h4) in case "she was a fast machine" doesn't ring a bell.
> 
> Plus some [further reading](https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/how-you-shook-me-all-night-long-went-from-a-laddish-sex-anthem-to-a-wedding-staple) about this very important and culturally significant song. (It's basically canon that Ben would think the words are all about Rey sitting on his face, y/y?)


End file.
